


Vindicate-Retaliate

by odoridango



Series: Tell It Like It Is [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Frottage, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:34:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1965678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odoridango/pseuds/odoridango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin and Eren have their first encounter in an empty room, and the Commander muses on what has led him to this point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vindicate-Retaliate

“He’s fifteen,” Levi always says at the door with that look of his, the one just this side of judging.

Again, youth.

But Erwin doesn’t think about that when he’s backing Eren up against the wall of an empty room. Or maybe he does, weighs it against his desperation, weighs it against the want, remembers Levi’s stares from across rooms, from windows, silent.

The thing is that Eren is a strange marvel, for his shifting ability and honesty both. Staying with the Legion even after Erwin had Levi beat the boy half to death in a court room, speaks to Erwin and gives him the time of day despite the locked-down plans in Erwin’s mind that cause Eren to give him those shrewd looks. And Eren Jaeger doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.

The decision to go eat breakfast with him that one morning had been a calculated effort to ensure Eren’s loyalty, even after a disastrous experiment that ended with detached limbs and discouraged soldiers. Make sure the boy is still on your side, make sure he doesn’t resent you, make sure he thinks you care, somehow, even if you aren’t allowed to care, even if soldiers need to be numbers to you.

He gets the jump on Erwin. Surprises him, gets close, gets intimate to be able to challenge. Subtle rebellion, not-so-subtle refutation, and where Levi refuses to play, where Hanji demands nothing but clarity and debate, Eren frolics, goes along with his twisted wordplay to cut straight to the heart, slicing straight to the clean and simple. He’s seen Eren angered, incandescent with rage and fifteen meters tall, but he hadn’t seen Eren reasonable, Eren thoughtful.

The boy is vicious in his own way, doesn’t hesitate to bare his teeth or rear back his fangs, gives it back to Erwin straight, plays but refuses to play along. There’s something about people like them, people who live off the duality of humanity and monstrosity, who savor the brutality, the ruthlessness and hedonistic pleasure of power and strength, but nevertheless still feel, still want to connect.

He knows not what Eren thinks of him, whether the boy thinks of him as cruel or manipulative, careless or cold. All that matters is that Eren keeps looking him in the eye, keeps taking him in as he is, monster and human parts alike, and somehow, something that simple helps him balance it out, the lengths he must go to for humanity, and the being he has become, unrecognizable to him on some nights, some plagued by nightmares, others drowned by the haze of alcohol.

But here too, as Eren looks up at him in surprise, hands braced against the wall, he is both monster and human to want something so plebian, so basic as comfort and warmth. In the large scheme of things it means nothing, he supposes; he is damned and sleeping with Eren will do nothing to change that, will not dig his deep grave any further. Neither will it redeem him. Like everything else, it is a human motion. The comfort will be brief, physical, maybe even meaningless. Certainly, Eren is a better conversational partner than he expected, but he doesn’t think of anything so complicated as relationship, merely wants to have that warmth under that skin for one night, after a day spent gazing at casualties and coffin expenses.

More surprises—Eren makes the first move, leans the rest of the way up so that their lips brush together. He’s done this before, judging by the firm way he moves his lips, traces his tongue against the corners of Erwin’s mouth, nibbles a little at the plush of Erwin’s bottom lip, before Erwin takes over to pry him open, slips a finger into Eren’s mouth to open him more, drinks in the quiet noises the boy makes. Eren instigates, sparks, and if Erwin cared to look at it more carefully he might even be able to say that Eren controls their pace.

Again, youth, and Eren winds him close with strong arms and rolling hips, gasps as Erwin suckles a line down his neck, trails large hands up his sides, underneath the straps of the gear. He’s fifteen. He likes bloody fairy tales, wants to live loud and free and colorful. He doesn’t want to be protected. He’s walked on one leg, killed two men, asks questions with a tilt of the head and a widening of large green eyes, and he’s a monster like Erwin is a monster, and the both of them are human just the same, hungry and weak.

Eren’s hands are steady and sure, wandering across his torso, rubbing up against his nipples, digging into the muscles of his arms and back. He bites, not hard enough to draw pressure, but enough to make a mark, and he moves like a snake, body undulating, mesmerizing.

“I don’t want you to protect me,” Eren pants into his ear, boldly cups the tent in Erwin’s pants. “I don’t need you to protect me.”

He’s fifteen and Erwin has nothing to lose, but what about Eren? There’s no notion of purity for him to give up, no moral high ground for either of them to have. Belly-crawlers the both of them, surviving, getting by. But Eren tugs him close, winds his legs around his waist like a lover, and leads Erwin in like he does in their conversations, instigates, sparks. They rut against each other there in the empty room, unsure of what they’ve lost and what they’re trying to regain.

When he finally comes, it feels like relief.

**Author's Note:**

> Dya 4 of eruren week: sacrifice/loss. and they finally did something, hurrah.


End file.
